5 Lifehacks to Boost Your Productivity

By Lenny & Larry's. Posted on September 8, 2017.

You have as many hours in a day as Beyoncé, or so all those witty mugs and Instagram posts claim. The truth is Queen Bey has a massive team to help her get stuff done. If you don’t have a team of assistants, here’s how you can be more productive, hit your goals faster, and still have time to drink some lemonade.

1. Quit Multitasking

You might feel like you’re being productive by doing several tasks at once, but you’re actually sabotaging your success. Multiple studies have shown how switching between tasks and trying to do too much at once actually drains you, slows you down and cuts your productivity by a whopping 40 per cent!

2. Avoid Decision Fatigue

Having to make too many choices can slow you down and zap your efficiency. It’s why Apple’s Steve Jobs and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg always look the same in photos. Both visionaries eliminated as many unnecessary choices as possible (like what shirt to wear) so they could focus on what mattered most to them. Take a look at your daily rituals and lessen the number of decisions you have to make. For example, instead of staring at the vending machine every day, stock up your work drawer with some healthy snacks (like some Complete Cookies!). Something as simple as having to choose what snack to eat could be keeping you from inventing the next iPhone.

3. Create a Battle Plan Early

Walt Disney famously said, "The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing." But before you start doing, start planning. The key is doing it the night before.

See, every morning is already chaotic as you rush to get out the door. By journaling out your to-do list every evening, you’re able to better plan and think without wasting precious morning time trying to figure out your day.

4. Make a Time Budget

Productivity and building success is kind of like building wealth. You need to budget. Think of every minute as a dollar that you’re either depositing or withdrawing from your productivity bank account. When it comes to your personal finances, you need to track how you spend your money in order to use your money more wisely.

The same is true with productivity. By tracking how you spend your time, you can see where you’re wasting time and change your habits accordingly. Use your phone or a notepad to jot down what you do in 30-minute increments. After a few days of doing this, you’ll quickly see how you spend your time and what habits are taking up more time than you thought (hint: most people are shocked at how much time they spend on social media!).

5. Forget Perfection

"Don't let perfectionism become an excuse for never getting started," says Marilu Henner, and she’s spot on. Trying to get things just right will destroy your productivity. To get things perfectly done, most people will spend minutes or even hours researching tactics and strategies, then they’ll spend even more precious time editing, changing or adjusting what they just did. All of this is time that could be spent getting more done.

“Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving to be our best,” writes author Brene Brown. Do your best, get the job done, and revise or change the results only if they aren’t achieving your goals. But if it gets the job done, move on.

And as you move on, armed with these 5 productivity-boosting strategies, you’ll be a child of destiny. Just like Beyoncé herself.